For her PhD Lucy King studied elephant behaviour and in 2013 she won the Future For Nature Award for her research on using honey bees as a natural deterrent for crop-raiding elephants.
Elephants are seen as the most damaging crop-raiding animals. In Kenya, they are not always confined to national parks and reserves, which means that interactions between them and farmers can cause serious social, political, economic and issues.
Lucy was looking for alternative ways to tackle the rapidly increasing human-elephant conflict, and found that beehive fences are a natural way of deterring elephants from crop fields. Nowadays, she is working with women in over 19 countries, teaching them to farm honey, grow alternative crops and use their yields to make woven baskets and other products, all to live in better harmony with elephants.
If you are interested in hearing more about this amazing project you can watch Lucy King’s TEDWomen 2019 talk, or read about her work on the Future For Nature website.
https://www.ted.com/talks/lucy_king_how_bees_can_keep_the_peace_between_elephants_and_humans
https://futurefornature.org/ffn_winner/dr-lucy-king/
More info: ted.com
